All posts in category kitten

The first four kittens on the list were killed because of their “behavior”. I guess the person holding them in their hands must have been mauled after these photos were taken. The complete records, including all veterinary notes, were requested. The only records provided by the city of Memphis were copies of the cage cards. Records indicate that the behavior of these tiny kittens was so unmanageable, they could not be scanned for a chip or weighed. But all four kittens had their records marked “no chip” at the time they were killed.

The next two kittens on the list were killed because MAS staff didn’t have “time” to take care of them. The complete records, including all veterinary notes, were requested. The only records provided by the city of Memphis were copies of the cage cards.

MAS killed the last four kittens on the list because they were “too young”. Kittens have that tendency. It’s not a permanent disability but when you operate primarily as a pet killing facility like MAS does, any excuse will do. The complete records, including all veterinary notes, were requested. The only records provided by the city of Memphis were copies of the cage cards. Note that all four kittens were killed before their “review date”, the date the city says must expire before the animals can be photographed or networked by Memphis Pets Alive to save them from the kill room.

But don’t criticize, they’re doing the best they can, we all want the same thing, blah.

Mama cat and newborn kittens, saved by a member of the public in Ohio. Because kittens. (photo by Casey Post)

The Greenville Co pound in SC has implemented two new policies concerning cats:

1. Kittens born at the pound who weigh less than 100 grams will be taken from their mothers and killed immediately. The reason, as stated in an e-mail written by Susan Bufano, the community relations coordinator for the Greenville Co pound, in response to a concerned citizen:

It is not a normal, healthy birth weight and our vet has determined that they will probably not survive.

“Probably not” indicates to me an inherent admission that there is some hope for survival. And I think that hope is very reasonable, considering the following:

This government study which looked at newborn kitten weights in five different cat breeds found that only two breeds, Maine Coon and the Norwegian Forest Cat (both large cats), had kittens which averaged more than 100 grams at birth. The other three breeds studied – Birman, Persian, and Siamese/Oriental Shorthair – all had kittens whose average weight at birth was between 82 and 97 grams.

A random veterinarian I found via Google wrote: “Kittens have a normal birth weight of 100 ± 10 g (3.5 ± 0.35 oz). Kittens with a birth weight of less than 90 g (3.2 oz) have poor survival rates.”

Given this information, it’s not at all clear to me that the Greenville Co pound policy is based in science. That is, the notion that kittens weighing less than 100 grams at birth “will probably not survive” appears dubious, at best. And to be clear, taking newborn kittens of any weight away from their nursing mothers in order to kill them is something only monsters would do. Kittens have a right to live and their mothers have the right to care for them. No animal “shelter” policy trumps those rights. Any “shelter” staff members who do not recognize that fact should resign immediately, before any additional animals are harmed due to their failures.

The other new policy at the pound:

2. Orphaned kittens under one pound are deemed “rescue only” and must leave the shelter within three hours. The reason, per Ms. Bufano’s e-mail:

We want our fosters to focus on the animals who have the highest likelihood for survival[.]

It was so hard on wonderful, loving fosters to take these neonate kittens home only for them not to thrive (and, the small weight also ended up indicating illness in the mothers) and pass away, regardless of how hard they cared for them. I witnessed the agony of many fosters who blamed themselves, when we all know that some kittens just don’t make it. They will be fine one day and die the next.

So, the decision was made to save the animals that had the most chance at survival. In doing so, we are anticipating more life saving, not less.

Wow, apparently it takes a whole mountain of bullshit to allow monsters to sleep at night.

By branding pets “rescue only”, shelters shut out an enormous pool of potential help: the general public. It’s not a good strategy to increase lifesaving. Also bad: using phony we-care-about-rescuers’-feelings as an excuse for killing kittens. How did someone even think this twisted thing up? Also also bad: requiring rescue groups, typically operated out of people’s homes on shoestring budgets, to somehow get orphaned kittens out of the Greenville Co pound within three hours of arrival.

Rescuers often have day jobs, families, and other pets in need of care and will rarely be in a position to drop everything in order to quickly snatch kittens from the kill room at the pound. That is, assuming the pound has promptly notified rescue contacts by mental telepathy since e-mail or voicemail obviously won’t suffice in these situations. How would you like to be the rescuer who checks her e-mail at lunch or after work and finds out a litter of orphaned kittens you would have been willing to save was killed by Greenville Co because you didn’t check your messages sooner? How is threatening to kill newborn orphaned kittens consistent with the county’s purported concern for rescuers’ emotional well-being?

While those who kill shelter pets instead of doing their jobs often blame the so-called irresponsible public for the killing, it is the shelter staff, following antiquated and inhumane policies designed to kill pets instead of helping them, who are to blame for the killing. In fact, no rescuers, fosters, adopters and no one outside of the Greenville Co pound should blame themselves for the needless killing being done there.

Greenville Co pretends to be interested in lifesaving and pretends to care about the emotional toll taken on the compassionate public willing to help shelter pets, all the while implementing policies so cruel and archaic, no one with a conscience need perform more than a cursory examination to determine how heartless and inconsistent with animal sheltering those policies are. Shame on Greenville Co for pretending to care. There are few worse things in this world. And they do those there, too.

Added, April 19, 2014:

Bringing up from the comments, from spaycritter, for those wanting to know who to contact about the needless killing of kittens at the Greenville Co pound:

At issue is the pound’s failure to hold the cat for the mandatory five day stray holding period so that his owner could reclaim him.

The lawsuit names Mobile County and three employees, Andrew Stubbs, Carmelo Miranda and Donna Jones as defendants, claiming the employees violated a shelter policy placing a five-day hold on animals between the time they are received and when they are euthanized. There are a total of four counts including outrage, conversion, conspiracy and negligent supervision. Hughes is asking for a jury trial to consider compensatory and punitive damages.

“[The shelter] has a five-day stray hold policy for this very reason, if somebody lost a pet,” Barnard said. “It’s certainly not a 30-minute stray hold policy.”

Making a tragic situation worse, the pound staff attempted to cover up the unlawful killing when the owner came looking for her pet. The staff eventually admitted they had killed Porkchop but later claimed he had been brought to the pound in a trap and was determined upon impound to be feral.

The owner’s attorney has obtained “a statement and pictures from the neighbor showing that the cat rode to the shelter in his lap and was acting like a normal, domesticated pet.” The attorney contends that because Porkchop was admitted near the end of the day, the pound staff was too lazy to set up a cage for him so killed the pet instead. Mobile Co is in the wrong here, in so many ways:

Killing healthy/treatable cats, whether tame or feral, is wrong.

Killing cats upon impound is wrong.

Evaluating cats’ behavior at time of impound is wrong.

Failing to hold a cat so the owner can find him is wrong.

Lying to the owner who is looking for her cat is wrong.

Fabricating a story about the cat being feral is wrong.

Anyone advocating for the removal of mandatory holding periods for stray cats lacking identification needs to remember Porkchop. His owner was looking for him and wanted him back. Had the staff at the Mobile Co pound done their jobs as required by law, Porkchop would be living at home today. Presumably most AL shelters, though not Mobile Co obviously, abide by the law and hold unidentified stray cats so their owners can reclaim them. If the stray holding period law were to be removed, there would be no legal protections in place to allow cats like Porkchop to be returned to their rightful owners.

On June 26, 2013, Merced County authorities served a search warrant at Last Hope Cat Kingdom – a pet sanctuary in California. Merced County Spokesman Mike North was on site during the raid and later talked to the local ABC affiliate:

He said many of the animals were severely emaciated, some had their eyes swollen shut, and others were infected with diseases. A team of veterinarians from across the state evaluated the pets and euthanized about two hundred of them on site.

Approximately 100 additional pets were removed from the property. North indicated that Merced Co AC had been monitoring the sanctuary and that prior inspections had all been satisfactory:

County officials said they have received past complaints about the non-profit, but inspections never revealed any problems, until last week.

“Spot checks were done by Merced County animal control and confirmed the poor conditions of the facility and the animals that were housed in them,” said North.

A Sun-Star review of Animal Control records revealed the agency transferred close to 2,000 kittens to Last Hope Cat Kingdom over a five-year period, nearly four times the number allowed by the rescue’s county-issued permit.

[…]

Last Hope Cat Kingdom’s permit allowed a maximum of 125 cats, but the county’s Animal Control sent 1,969 kittens to the facility through its foster group from 2009 to 2013, an average of 393 animals per year.

According to the Animal Control foster and rescue reports, the agency continued giving kittens to Last Hope Cat Kingdom’s volunteers up until the day of the search, June 25. Six kittens were transferred to the rescue group on the same day authorities raided the facility.

The average age of the cats given to Last Hope by Merced Co AC was 2 weeks. Last Hope was reportedly the only group that would accept bottle baby kittens and it was widely known that if Last Hope didn’t take the kittens, AC would kill the them. The pound would call Last Hope to pick up bottle babies an estimated 4 times a day during kitten season each year. Last Hope co-founder Renate Schmitz faced the same predicament as many other overburdened rescuers in areas where the local shelter doesn’t do its job:

Schmitz said her rescue sometimes stopped taking animals from the public, but said it was hard to say “no” to Animal Control. “If you don’t take them, you know they will be killed or euthanized,” she said.
[…]
Animal Services Manager Rick Blackwell acknowledged using Last Hope Cat Kingdom as the agency’s main rescue group for bottle babies, but said the nonprofit could have stopped accepting more animals.

Or the shelter could have stopped killing baby cats and started doing its job. Expanding the foster network jumps to mind, as does issuing pleas to the public on social media as bottle babies arrive at the shelter.

Dave Robinson, county Animal Control director, said in a recent interview that he was unaware the agency was sending that many kittens to Last Hope.
[…]
“One thing you have to remember about bottle babies is you probably have about 8 percent of them surviving,” Robinson said.

The veterinary literature reports intimidating mortality rates for orphaned kittens up to 12 weeks of age, ranging from 15% to 40%.

15, 40, 92 – whatevah, whatevs. It sounds like the director is attempting to whitewash his pound’s failure with orphaned kittens by implying they were going to die anyway but that is outright false. Many good shelters scramble during kitten season to get fosters and rescuers lined up for bottle feeding duty because it’s their job and because most of those animals survive.

And remember those “spot checks” and inspections the county spokesman had said AC was conducting at Last Hope? In light of the fact that the Sun-Star exposed AC had been giving the sanctuary kittens hand over fist, including the day of the raid, I wondered if the county was going to walk those inspections claims back:

“We would never knowingly create a problem,” Blackwell said. “If we had knowledge there was an issue, we would stop sending animals there.”

[…]

Blackwell confirmed that animal control officers visited Last Hope only when there was a complaint. The most recent complaint was filed in 2010, so it had been almost three years since a thorough inspection.

[…]

Robinson acknowledged that Animal Control hadn’t inspected the rescue annually. “I think going forward we realized we do need to have a role in the process,” he said.

[…]

Robinson said it’s possible that Animal Control officers were unaware Last Hope could have no more than 125 animals since the permit was issued in 2003 and by the Planning Department.

“Back in 2003, Animal Control knew what that number was, but over the midst of time, I think the number got lost,” Robinson said.

Oh please. More like: We weren’t doing our jobs but instead foisting our failures onto an overburdened rescue group. We tried to kill our way out of it with 200 on site kitten kills and lie our way out of it with claims of inspections and ignorance but then we were exposed by the local paper. So now, uh The Midst of Time and stuff.

No charges have yet been filed against Renate Schmitz or anyone at Last Hope Cat Kingdom.

Reader Dot rescued this orphaned litter of 3 week old kittens from the landfill – which is where they’ll be sent if she takes them to her local pound. Dot has a full house of canine fosters and is unable to care for these kittens. They are not eating solid food yet and will need to be bottle fed for a little while longer before they transition. If anyone can help, please contact:

Mother dog and litter at Austin Animal Center, as posted on PetHarbor.com

As a no kill advocate, I am opposed to the spaying of pregnant shelter animals. While I do not believe in the myth of pet overpopulation, that has nothing to do with my opposition. Even if I believed pet overpopulation was real (I do not), I would still be opposed to spaying pregnant dogs and cats because doing so means killing unborn puppies and kittens who have the right to live. As Nathan Winograd wrote in his blog:

When we spay pregnant animals and the unborn kittens and puppies die, the fact that they are not yet born does not relieve our responsibility toward assuring their right to live. When we abort kittens and puppies, we are literally killing puppies and kittens.

If the kittens or puppies are viable, they must be individually killed, usually through an injection of sodium pentobarbital. Even when they are not, however, when a mother is spayed, the kittens or puppies die from anoxia (oxygen deprivation) due to lack of blood supply from the uterus once the vessels are clamped. They suffocate.

I tragically witnessed the spaying of a pregnant dog when I worked in a vet clinic a couple of decades ago. There were two vets on duty and one was performing the surgery. She threw the uterus containing the puppies into the trash. The other vet retrieved the uterus and placed it on a sink table. The puppies crawled around helplessly while she drew up injections of Fatal Plus for each. Had she not killed them individually, they would have crawled around in the trash can until they eventually died. Back then, I did believe that pet overpopulation was real. But I still knew these killings were wrong.

In a shelter environment, pregnant dogs and cats are either killed or spayed regularly. There are presumably times when pregnant dogs and cats are killed or spayed and no one knew the animal was pregnant. While there may be variations among individuals, it is generally impossible to tell if a dog is pregnant just by looking at her during the first 5 weeks of the normal 9 week gestation period. With some dogs, you can not tell even in the last 4 weeks of pregnancy. Luckily there are other detection methods which can be performed by an experienced vet but they are limited. It is possible for vets who specialize in canine reproduction to palpate the uterus at approximately 4 weeks. The puppies at this time are contained in walnut sized sacs and the window for palpation is brief – about 1 week. Even if the timing is right and the vet is experienced, there are still some dogs who carry their pups in such a way to make palpation impossible. Ultrasound is a more reliable method of detecting pregnancy and may be used from about 3 weeks onward. Radiographs can only be used to detect pregnancy during the final 2 weeks of gestation. By that point, the dog may be able to diagnosed by simple observational methods such as an enlarged abdomen, development of mammary tissue, and fetal movement. While I have very little experience with female cats, my understanding is that pregnancy detection methods are similar to those used with dogs and ultrasound is the preferred method for reliability.

What does all this mean for female shelter animals? I believe we have a moral obligation to protect the lives of all shelter animals, including the unborn. I would therefore offer guidelines for a certain portion of the shelter population. That portion includes all female dogs and cats who meet the following criteria:

Have reached the age of puberty (approximately 6 months).

Have an unknown medical history and no sign of having been spayed (such as spay scar or tattoo).

Have not come into heat while in the shelter’s care. (Pregnant dogs and cats do not come in season.)

For female shelter animals who meet the above criteria, I suggest the following guidelines to protect the lives of any puppies or kittens they may be carrying:

If the female dog or cat meeting the specified criteria has been at the shelter for less than 9 weeks, the operating assumption must be that the animal is pregnant. For those animals meeting the criteria who have been at the shelter for less than 3 weeks, an inconclusive veterinary determination must be interpreted as positive for pregnancy until a conclusive determination can be made at a later date.

Under no circumstances should a female dog or cat meeting the specified criteria be killed unless a veterinarian determines she is irremediably suffering, in which case euthanasia should be performed.

Once a female is scheduled for sterilization, she should be evaluated for signs of pregnancy by the shelter vet.

If the shelter vet determines the animal is pregnant, the shelter may release her with reasonable restrictions to ensure that mother and litter are all sterilized prior to permanent adoption.

If the vet’s determination is inconclusive, the female may be released with a signed agreement to avoid all contact with intact males of her species until 9 weeks have elapsed from date of impound at which time she can be returned to the shelter for spay (or spayed by a private vet of the adopter’s choosing with verifiable documentation to be provided to the shelter).

Females meeting the specified criteria who have been at the shelter less than 9 weeks (but more than 3 weeks) may be spayed if a veterinarian determines, based upon ultrasound and confirmed by observation, that she is not pregnant.

Females who have come into heat while in the shelter’s care and who have been prevented from any unsupervised contact with intact males of their species may be assumed not to be pregnant and may be spayed without veterinary consultation regarding possible pregnancy.

Females meeting the specified criteria who have been at the shelter for more than 9 weeks and who have been prevented from any unsupervised contact with intact males of their species may be assumed not to be pregnant and may be spayed without veterinary consultation regarding possible pregnancy.

The risk of possible animal abuse by a screened adoption applicant exists at all times, not just Halloween. There is no evidence showing the risk of possible animal abuse by a screened adoption applicant increases at Halloween. And yet some shelters and rescue groups “protect” black cats by refusing to place them with screened applicants in the weeks leading up to Halloween. This myth-based practice results in increased cats in the kill room – which is the opposite of “protection”.

While I don’t know if Memphis Animal Services refuses to adopt out black cats at Halloween, I do know they kill them, just like they do all year. And here, MAS reminds us that the real threat to black cats comes from those with the license to kill, not from mythical animal sacrifice ritualists at Halloween.

This pair of black kittens could not have weighed more than 2 pounds combined. They were just one month old when someone brought them to MAS on October 11. James Rogers, the interim director at the pound, allowed them to live overnight before deciding they were taking up too much room and had to die. Each kitten was killed, using enough Fatal Plus to kill a 10 pound dog, on October 12. It must have been difficult to find a vein on these tiny scared kittens and I wonder if they were in fact injected IC or IP instead. There was no sedative given according to the records.

These healthy baby cats had a right to live. They were never offered for adoption and to my knowledge no plea was issued to rescue groups, fosters or the public before MAS killed them. How many more for your chamber of horrors, Memphis?

Newborn kittens can not regulate their own body temperatures and require a source of warmth. If they are not stimulated to void their body waste, they suffer from both great pain and toxic build-up. And orphans can not eat on their own so must be bottle (or tube) fed every 4 hours. If they are not fed, they become dehydrated and starve.

When a shelter takes in orphaned neonatal kittens, there is an immediate need for care. The kittens must be either placed with a nursing mama cat willing to accept them or cared for by a person. If the latter, the kittens must be stimulated in order to void their bladders and they must be warmed. After that, a clean and warm area must be created for them, feedings with kitten milk replacer must be offered every 4 hours and the amounts consumed by each kitten should be recorded after each feeding. Body weights must be recorded daily.

If the shelter maintains a foster list for bottle babies and/or a list of local rescue groups, everyone on these lists should be contacted immediately. If no such lists are maintained or if they don’t yield quick results, a plea should be issued to the general public via social media sites, local media outlets and the shelter’s website. It is important to get the kittens into a foster home as soon as possible. If a foster home is not secured before the close of business and no employee is able to take the kittens home overnight, the staff on night duty should be instructed to provide necessary care every 4 hours and document same until the day crew returns.

The records mention only 3 kittens being impounded – no mama cat. So presumably these were orphaned kittens. There are no notes in the records to indicate that any care was provided the night of impound to the two kittens pictured nor that they were placed with a nursing mama cat. No weights were recorded in their records and they did not see a vet. There are no notes indicating any pleas were issued to the public for fosters or any rescue groups contacted.

The following day was a Saturday. MAS was open. There are no notes in the records to indicate that any care was provided that day. No weights were recorded in their records and they did not see a vet. There are no notes indicating any pleas were issued to the public for fosters or any rescue groups contacted.

On Sunday the 16th, MAS was closed. There are no notes in the records to indicate that any care was provided that day. No weights were recorded in their records and they did not see a vet. There are no notes indicating any pleas were issued to the public for fosters or any rescue groups contacted. Given that the kittens were apparently still alive on Sunday, I am assuming they had received some care, whether from a mama cat or a person, but that is not something confirmed by the records.

On Monday the 17th, MAS was again closed. There are no notes in the records to indicate that any care was provided that day although again, I am operating on the assumption that they were in fact receiving some form of care given that they were still alive. No weights were recorded in their records and they did not see a vet. There are no notes indicating any pleas were issued to the public for fosters or any rescue groups contacted. A supervisor noted in the kittens’ records that they were taking up space needed for other animals (in a facility with plenty of empty cages) and their time had expired. In fact, their time had not expired and the review date listed on both kittens was September 20. Both kittens, and presumably the sibling, were killed on the 17th, violating the legally mandated holding period for strays.

Since I can not verify via the records that these kittens did receive some form of care while at MAS, I want to make clear one specific point, regardless of whether it applies to these particular pets. I do not condone the killing of kittens who are not determined by a vet to be medically hopeless and suffering. But if a situation occurs where a shelter outright refuses to do its job, makes no effort to find anyone willing to provide care for newborn orphaned kittens, and does not place them with a nursing mama cat willing to accept them, I see no justification for forcing the kittens to suffer in a cage for any length of time without care. The pain from distended bladders, illness from the toxic build-up of waste, dehydration and starvation from lack of bottle feedings and chill from a lack of heat source would be excruciating for neglected orphan kittens.

The MAS records for the two kittens pictured seem to indicate at least some degree of neglect (the severity of which is difficult to determine due to the shoddy record keeping practices at MAS) and a violation of the stray holding period law. This was the entirety of their brief lives.

In May and June of 2012, records obtained via FOIA show the Memphis pound killed a total of 20 kittens and 22 puppies for the crime of being “too young”. Being born is not a medically hopeless condition requiring euthanasia. It is a gift, something to be cherished and protected.

Photo submitted by reader Ashley, who writes: “My foster kitten, Ollie, at 1 week old, right after a feed.”

Photo by reader Ashley, who writes: “Ollie at 10 weeks with one of my other fosters, a couple days before they were adopted.”

Compassionate foster owners value the lives of newborn kittens and puppies and are willing to put in the work to make sure they are well cared for and given every chance at a good life. Shouldn’t a taxpayer funded “shelter” at least do as good a job as the so-called irresponsible public?